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Redecentralize, everything

“HELLO WISCONSINNNNnnn”

Sorry, had to say it at some point. Very excited because tomorrow I’ll be in Madison talking to the U. of Wisconsin about Drupal and the work I’ve been up to over the last 3 years now. I can already tell it’s going to be a tiring yet fruitful trip as it’s two days of talks followed by two days of DrupalCamp WI (which I’ll hopefully also be talking at sessions).

My big push while there is not only to see what kind of resource and information sharing we can do, but also get the prospect of a Drupal in Higher Education Consortium out on the table. I’ve been talking to some major universities over the past year and after Drupalcon DC 09, really was about to identify a few who fit into one of three groups: Interested in going out direction, going a similar direction, or completely divergent. I’m happy to say most seemed to be either interested in going our way or are already working towards a similar end goal.

From talking shop with others I know that Pitt and VT are very interested in using Drupal and have started to create some sites. Arizona State University and a few others that I’ve talked to or read about informally also seem to be developing either systems or modules that align very well with the Course Manager module that I have sitting in the wings. Course Manager is really like the controller for our Drupal sites and it loosely stitches them together into a CMS-light architecture. ASU’s work seemed to be in a similar direction so it would be great to meet up with them in the future.

For now though, my focus is WI and figuring out what they’ve got rolling and what we can get rolling. The fact that Bill Fitzgerald will be out there too also seems to indicate to me their level of seriousness in going towards some more complex Drupal solutions. Bill’s got more of the consultation side of the equation, started the Drupal in Education group, is the maintainer of the DrupalED distro, and also wrote the book, so he’s got SOOOMME street cred ;). I think I’ve peaked their interest because I’m doing so much work that’s intended to help all of us and have been so active in the community the last year. The goal of being open has been to foster collaboration and communication so if more relationships like the one we’re (hopefully) forging with WI happen, giving everything I do away (and spending countless hours writing it that way in the first place!) has all been worth it :).

Hope to see you at Drupalcamp WI, should be around 100 people and hopefully you’ll see me there unable to shut up!